Category: Anything and everything

I like to do a review of the year passed, mostly just the things happened each month that I can recall, so here we go.

Jan – My brother visited from Sweden we spent time together , it was always nice to have him back in NZ with us, but as always there was family tension towards the end of his stay. None of it was anyone’s fault, its just our family dilemma. This time I chose to stay out of it instead of being the mediator between my parents, and I am glad I did that.

Also we moved into the new house.

Feb – Randi and Morten arrived NZ safely, it was really nice to have them staying at the new house with us, Bella was super happy to have grandparents from Norway visiting us. They helped us get the garden ready and Randi painted our living room wall. Till today when we have guests over, they comment on how nice the wall colour is.

We celebrated Bella’s 3rd birthday with lots of friends over at the new house, little did we know it was the last proper party we would have for the rest of the year.

March – Mum went to Canada, Covid hit NZ. When NZ government announced borders were closing and Air NZ started cancelling international flights, I brought forward mum’s return tickets by 3 weeks for her to return to NZ immediately. That was one of the best decisions I have made in a while. She went into self-isolation at home for two weeks.

April – We celebrated my dad’s birthday in the front garden of my parents house, while my mum sat 2 meters away as she was still in self-isolation. It was good she didn’t catch anything on the flight, that time flight risk was still relatively low.

Weeks later my parents went to get flu shot from GP, but mum got sick and ended up in emergency. It was quite an experience to be admitted into hospital during the lock down.

May – Lock down lifted, I celebrated birthday with families also went out for dinner with 3 girlfriends. We felt lucky none of our lives changed much by this virus, I felt fortunate M and I both kept working, as we had a new mortgage it was stressful to think what would happen to the new house if one of us lost income.

June – Mum start seeing specialist, many visits to the hospital with many tests, they suspected something not great with her lungs. Luckily cancer was ruled out.

July – We went on a camper van trip for the first time. It rained a lot but the scenery was beautiful. It was good to get out of Auckland for a bit after being in the same place for half a year.

August – Auckland went into the 2nd lockdown, this time it didn’t last as long and everyone was more or less used to the “new normal”. Covid is becoming part of daily life.

September / October – For some reason there is not much I can remember about these two months, work was good. I read lots of books. Other than that, I really can’t think of anything to note.

November – We found out we are having another baby. I learnt how misleading morning sickness was, as it lasted whole day, not just about the mornings.

December – I was sick most of time, tired and nauseous. M helped out lots, my parents also cooked for us. With all the help I carried into 2nd trimester and regained my strength. We left for South Island on Boxing Day for a 2 weeks trip along the west coast.

All in all, its a year of lots of thinking and reflection, since we stuck at home most of the time. Living in NZ, I kept reminding myself to count my blessings when I read news about what is happening in other parts of the globe. I am certain crisis and tragedy happen on daily basis, its just the scale of this virus is something most of us have not experienced in a life time. I do not know if I got much wiser with all that I have experienced or witnessed this year, one thing I do gained from all this is that I learnt to sit on the fence a bit more. It means when something happens, I don’t tend to react as fast, pass a judgment as quickly, I want to watch and learn before decide on what I think of it. Hope this is something useful to carry on into another year.

Late last month my mum went through a CT scan and the result showed that she needed further test. So today I went with her to hospital for a bronchscopy.

We reached hospital in the early morning, after answered a long list of questions, she was told her procedure won’t take place till 3 hours later. Due to Covid, we did not want to be at the hospital waiting around, so we went to the park for a walk then spent sometime at a library near by. One thing I am grateful of was the two big hospitals near us both have very big parks near by. While you waiting for a test there is green space to walk about. Whenever I was walking in these parks, I wonder how many secrets these trees would have known from all those people who walked through them.

When we retuned again for the delayed test, we were told the translator isn’t available onsite. So I said I would go in to the room with my mum as a translator. The nurse kindly remind me if I felt nervous or dizzy I can go outside. My mum was also glad I could be next to her. I guess the doctors and nurses didn’t want to end up attending to a scared support person while the patient is being treated.

The procedure was straightforward, they put a pipe down mum’s chest and lungs and to look closely at the area of concern, then take out some samples for further testing. It must be really uncomfortable but my mum did really well. One thing she didn’t get use to with NZ’s health system was that the tests result won’t be ready on the same day. Comparing to the health system in China, you wait for hours for all the procedures to be done in one day, then doctors would deliver the result to you in a few minutes of time, then next patient is waiting to be seen. Unless you have very good private care or government health care, the hospital visits can be a highly stressful situations for most ordinary people. Here it may take weeks to get your appointment, but once you are seen by the doctor, there was time just for you to understand what is going on with your body and if you have any concerns or questions. Each doctor specialise in one specific area, today there were two doctors onsite, one is to carry out the procedure another is to check the samples are good enough to be further tested. However we won’t know the result until we have another appointment with the specialist, who would look at my mum’s health issues from all the tests then come to a conclusion of what might be the solution. It looks like we will know more of the full result by early Oct, unless they see something needs urgent treatment then my mum will be seen even earlier.

I am surprised by how calm I am sitting there waiting for the procedure to end. Of course, its uncomfortable to see mum lying in bed with tubes inside of her. However, I kept telling myself that we do the best we can until we know more. When we know more, we do better. I am getting better to focus on the task at hands instead of worrying too much ahead. I am not a doctor, I will leave it to the doctor and the health specialists to figure out what is going on. What I can do is support my mum as best as I can, and if need to, I will learn and research on how to do better in any set of situation we face together.

Till then.

Fear is a friend, sometime it walks along side me. sometime it gets on my back, let me carry it. Sometime it walks faraway from me, I almost forgot it exists.

For the last few months, like many people around the world, I would say fear is on my back, constantly.

I am fearful for my loved ones health. I am fearful for my health. I am fearful for my job. I am fearful for the future.

To admit I carry fear is not easy. Most time, I could have a full head of worries then I see my friends or my work mates, I smile. I smile not only to reassure others everything is ok, but also the action of smiling actually help keeping fear at bay.

Fear is a friend, it is a old friend. This friend is loyal, as it knows all my weakness and my strengths. It knows my deepest desire and what I long for in life. Fear knows who I love and care the most. Fear knows all my aspirations and my hopes.

I long for the day fear walk alongside me, who I see as a companion but not someone I carry on my back. It can get heavy. M tells me fear is an illusion, its almost crazy to be scared of something does not exist or something not even happened yet. Its very true. However, it does not really help. Fear is a friend, who is always there.

I am grateful to have a friend as fear, it keeps me from making rush decisions, it keeps me on the ground. It reminds me what worth to keep, whats to treasure and whats to let go. It teaches me the deep meaning of loss and gain.

Learn to live alongside fear is a life long lesson. Hey fear, I acknowledge your existence in my life, this is a good start. We will get to know each other better and learn to live alongside each other just fine.

Last note to self – Fear and Fun, both start with the letter F, also Fine.

When we moved in our new house, the only neighbour we didn’t know much at all was the people living in the first house on our block. When they moved in, there were two BMW cars parked out front, there were lots of shoes outside the house. I joked to M that it seems a big family have just moved in. We also thought perhaps they were renters as I met the owner at the auction and it was not the same people who moved there. The family moved in are Koreans, we knew this as the young son of the family came over to our house asked about how to install gas bottle. I have to admit I was being a bit selfish and judgy, as I thought if they rent the place maybe they won’t stay long, so I did not make as much efforts in getting to know them as I have tried with the other two neighbours.

Today M told me he heard from another neighbour that a week before they moved in our block, the father of the family passed away. For some reason I felt really sad about it. Its hard to describe why I got a bit emotional about someone I did not know at all, but I just felt that I was not being fair to them. I made efforts to get to know the other neighbours but not them. I had my own opinions about them without never speaking to them. Now I know they were going through a hard time, thats probably why they were a bit hard to get to know.

I am mumbling on now. What I got out of this was a lesson to myself, I often narrate a story in my head about the things I thought I know. But often I have no idea what others are going through, what kind of day they have. Maybe I should learn not to judge others without much information at all.

I want to write this down, its not a logical piece of writing, but I want to remind myself to drop my ego and prejudice a bit. Just be a nicer person.

I made a list of things I would like to do in the new age:

1. join ocean swim next summer
2. tramping , do at least one of the great walks in NZ
3. Get outside more
4. Plant things, make our backyard alive

I listened to a really good talk on how to control our breath. In life often we are faced with stimulation and response. For example, you broke your favourite cup, thats a stimulation, then the response either would be very mad about it or you shrug and tidy up the broken pieces. Often, there is a pause between the two, thats when you get to make the choice and it could be life changing moments. I remember when I was in the hospital bed waiting for Isabella to be born, the hospital nurse mentioned how tranquil I seemed to be. It was still one of the most proud moments I had about myself. Magnus and I attended hypno-birthing class, and I practiced breathing techniques every day before I went into labour. I can recall vividly how the way I breath change my level of anxiety and fear. One skill I always want to learn is being fearful but still continue to act.

When I was in my late teens, I was very into adventure activities. My main goal to come to NZ was to do Bungy jumping and I ticked that off the list in the first 2 years arrived in NZ. It was during one of the surfing trips I got swept out to the sea by under currents, I came face to face with fear and experienced how it could paralyse your physical movements. During early years at University, I also had a few panic attacks. Now looking back, all of these can be considered as practice of making the right decision when I experienced stimulation and response. The older I get, the more I avoid to putting myself into uncomfortable situations. Also I get better at telling stories about myself of things I am good at and the things I am hopeless with. I miss the fearless me, detached with any defined things about myself. So I promise myself the older I get the more I am going to practice of facing fear. We can not make good of the future, yet we do many things telling ourself these decisions going to secure our future. If anything the past 3 months have taught me would be the world is becoming a difficult place to predict. I enjoy being in control, so the only thing I can be aware of and have some control is breathing. Did you know that we breath 23,000 times a day and often we are not truly aware of completing these in and outs. Human body is truly incredible.

So in this new age, the aim is to get uncomfortable more in return of growth and a little bit more wisdom. Get better at breathing and use that to navigate through adventures in life. I gave up on understand how the world works for a bit as long as Trump is still in power. I decided to focus on myself, understand my mind, my body and how my actions impact on people and things around me.

Lets check in here again next year this time, see how I get on. Stay tuned.